1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is for a catheter system, and more particularly, pertains to a system of a mapping and guiding catheter and an ablation catheter for use in the mapping and guiding catheter for treatment of tachyarrhythmia.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Ablation of myocardial tissue as it is practiced today has several problems.
First, the identification of the correct arrythmogenic site is both difficult and time consuming. Thus, once the correct site is found, it is advantageous to keep this location at all costs. The constant motion of the heart may make some positions difficult to hold.
Second, current ablation procedures perform both mapping and ablation with the same catheter. Many times, blood is coagulated onto the electrodes during ablation, necessitating the removal of catheter from the heart for cleaning. This results in the loss of position, necessitating another mapping period to find the correct site.
Third, most catheter systems do not measure the response of myocardial tissue to the application of energy. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to know whether the tissue is being destroyed or whether the energy is being diverted to the catheter or blood. This may cause procedures to take longer or have unwanted side effects to the patient.
The present invention overcomes these problems. The catheter system is divided into two separate devices. The first device is a mapping/guiding catheter, which has the ability to perform local activation mapping and to guide an ablation catheter to its target site. The second device is an ablation catheter which delivers energy to the myocardium to destroy selected myocardial tissue.